The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) will be host­ing an In­fluen­za Vac­ci­na­tion Road Trip, be­gin­ning Sat­ur­day 21st Sep­tem­ber 2024, at Gulf City Mall.

It comes with the ac­ti­va­tion of the Min­istry of Health’s Na­tion­al In­fluen­za Vac­ci­na­tion Cam­paign on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2024—ahead of the 2024/2025 In­fluen­za sea­son, which runs from Oc­to­ber 2024 to May 2025.

RHAs around the coun­try are ramp­ing up their in­di­vid­ual pro­grammes, as the Min­istry is mak­ing avail­able the In­fluen­za vac­cine—free of charge to the pub­lic—at all health cen­tres na­tion­wide.

Ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry, the In­fluen­za vac­cine should be tak­en sea­son­al­ly, rather than an­nu­al­ly, to en­sure max­i­mum pro­tec­tion.

“This vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign will fo­cus on high-risk groups, which in­clude in­di­vid­u­als who are more sus­cep­ti­ble to se­vere ill­ness if they con­tract the In­fluen­za virus,” the Min­istry ex­plained in a re­cent state­ment.

It notes that high-risk per­sons in­clude in­di­vid­u­als with chron­ic con­di­tions, among oth­er vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties:

  ●   Res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases

  ●   Di­a­betes

  ●   Heart dis­ease

  ●   Chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease

  ●   Liv­er dis­ease

  ●   Im­muno-sup­pressed in­di­vid­u­als

  ●   Obe­si­ty

  ●   Can­cer

  ●   Chil­dren aged 6 months to 5 years

  ●   Health­care Work­ers

  ●   Preg­nant Women

  ●   Adults 65 years and old­er

“The Min­istry of Health strong­ly en­cour­ages the pub­lic to take ad­van­tage of the In­fluen­za vac­cine to pro­tect them­selves and their loved ones from the Flu. Vac­ci­na­tion is a key pre­ven­tive mea­sure to re­duce the risk of se­vere ill­ness, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion, and com­pli­ca­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with the Flu, par­tic­u­lar­ly in high-risk groups,” the Min­istry said.

It is en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tact their near­est Health Cen­tre, or to vis­it the Min­istry of Health’s so­cial me­dia pages and/or web­site (www.health.gov.tt), for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the In­fluen­za virus and the vac­ci­na­tion sched­ules.